Celebrate S.T.E.A.M. showcases student research projects for its second year

The second annual S.T.E.A.M. showcase came to Durham College’s Oshawa campus on Wednesday morning to highlight capstone projects made by DC students.

The Office of Research Services, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ORSIE) organized S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Architecture and Math) on April 18.

Students from various DC programs in the Science & Engineering Technology and Centre for Food departments displayed their research projects end of their program.

Debbie McKee Demczyk is the Dean of ORSIE. She says S.T.E.A.M. is an opportunity for students to present products to external audiences in a real-world customer setting.

“S.T.E.A.M. is a wonderful opportunity for students to be able to talk about their projects, the learning experiences that they’ve had throughout the course of their whole program and to be able to top it off by doing a pitch to an external audience,” she says.

Some of the products displayed during S.T.E.A.M. included Matcha Bars, TeleVital Signs Wearable Technology, ENER-BALLZ, Melon Cubes, and Kombucha Tea, all formulated by students.

Casey Chessman was a vendor and a student in the Horticulture: Food and Farming program at DC. She displayed her product “Hopped Honey,” an unpasteurized honey with added hops to promote regulated sleep.

She says she dreams of being a farmer, and her program helped her realize farming is more than just growing food.

“Going through the program, I thought it would be just about the farming, but it was actually also focused on food processing, food science and chemistry. We also learned a lot about food health and safety,” Chessman says. “At first, I just wanted to learn how to farm but now I’ve learned that all those other things are so important too. When I graduate, I’ll get my dream job working on a farm and growing my own food.”

She says Celebrate S.T.E.A.M. helped her to realize farming and business go hand-in-hand.

“S.T.E.A.M. helped me create a product and made me realize I can grow my own food and be a business owner at the same time,” she says.

Research Day 2018, an interactive forum hosted by ORSIE is another showcase of Durham College students and their research from the school year.